In just one day, the president-elect Joe Biden will be in charge along with a new administration in charge, while the US continues to fight the COVID pandemic. Just before officially assuming his role as COVID consultant for the White House, Michael Osterholm, PhD, MPH, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, gave a grim prediction about what is to come in relation to the spread of the virus. The Biden-appointed official warned that the new strains of COVID will make the pandemic “unlike anything we’ve ever seen.” For more information on your prediction, read on and for another recent warning from a new officer, check out the new director of the CDC just issued this very dark warning from COVID.
At the moment, the United Kingdom strain, which is said to be 50 percent more transmissible than the dominant coronavirus strain in the United States, has been identified in 20 states, reports the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). However, two other highly contagious strains – one from South Africa and one from Brazil – are causing additional concern, as they have altered the virus more dramatically and could make our treatments and vaccines less effective, a theory that experts are investigating. . Although these two strains have not yet been identified in the USA, Anthony Fauci, MD, said recently Newsweek the new variants would be discovered in the United States “sooner or later”.
But one thing is certain: these new strains are likely to increase cases. During an interview on CNN’s New day on January 19, Osterholm warned: “We will suddenly see these variants come into play,” he said. “Based on the experience we saw in Europe, in particular in South Africa, these variants can substantially increase the number of cases.”
Osterholm is concerned that what comes next in the pandemic is unprecedented. On January 14, he told WCCO, a local Minneapolis affiliate CBS News, that these strains were a serious problem. “The challenges are immense, just immense,” he said. “If you think we have had a problem so far with this virus, if these variants have spread around here and caused the problems they have in [England and Ireland], God help us. “And to receive the most up-to-date COVID news directly in your inbox, subscribe to our daily newsletter.
Osterholm predicts that a scary change in the pandemic is fast approaching. “I desperately worry in the next six to 12 weeks, we will see a situation with this pandemic unlike anything we’ve seen so far,” Osterholm told CNN. “And this is really a challenge that I think most people haven’t figured out yet.”
On January 15, the CDC issued a warning that the UK variant could become the dominant strain in the United States by March, and experts like Scott Gottlieb, MD, the former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, also shared a similar warning. During an appearance on CBS News’ Face the Nation on January 17, he said, “At the moment, this new variant is about 0.5 percent of all infections across the country. There are access points in Southern California and Florida that may be closer to 1 percent, but it’s going to double every week. So it’s about doubling every week. That’s the experience of other countries and that’s the experience we’ve seen so far in the United States. So it’s 1 percent now. , then 4 percent, then 8 percent, then 16 percent, then 32 percent. Then, in about five weeks, this will start to take over. “That would put us in mid-February, according to the forecast of Gottlieb.
“What we are seeing is a relentless attack by this virus that is heading for spring, while infections would actually have started to subside in the spring,” he said. “We would have had a peaceful spring. We could have persistently high levels of infection in the spring until we finally vaccinate enough people.” For some useful tips on masks to keep you safe, see The CDC warns against using these 6 face masks.
Osterholm said vaccines are also a key component in mitigating the impact of the pandemic and new strains. However, he said, “we cannot make the vaccine go much faster than it does now.”
During a January 17 interview with NBC’s Meet the press, Fauci also said that the vaccine is the way to prevent a more significant spread of COVID, even if the new variants create more infection. “The easiest way to avoid this negative effect of these new isolates is … only when the vaccine is available, people should be vaccinated,” he said. “If we can vaccinate … the overwhelming majority of the population, we would be in very good shape and we could beat even the mutant.” And to find out more about where the UK strain is so far, check out The new COVID strain is now in these states.
As for the worsening in the next phase of the pandemic, said Osterholm, it all comes down to how quickly we act. “The difference will be, we will react now or later,” he explained. According to Osterholm, the Biden government will take “dramatic steps” to mitigate the spread of the new variants. However, he added, “The question is when will we do this? Did we hit the brake after the cars curled up in the tree or did we try to hit the brake before leaving the intersection?” To see what precautions we could abandon, check out These 2 COVID precautions may not be necessary after all, a new study has found.
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